Directed by: Francis Veber
Written by: Francis Veber
Music by:

Filming Location: Studio Eclair in Paris, France

Released on: April 15, 1998
Running Time: 76 minutes

Budget: $ 11 million
Box-Office: $ million in the U.S., $ million worldwide
Rentals: over 9 million moviegoers in France, $4.065 million in the U.S., £184,178 in the U.K.
 

http://www.atinternet.com/cinema/diner/

 pour super interview aussi !

http://us.imdb.com/ImageView?u=http%3A//images.amazon.com/images/P/0783239955.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg poster
 

CAST
 

Pierre Brochant... Thierry Lhermitte
François Pignon... Jacques Villeret
Just Leblanc... Francis Huster
Cheval... Daniel Prévost
Christine Brochant... Alexandra Vandernoot
Marlène... Catherine Frot
 
 
 
 

STORY

Each week, Pierre and his friends organize what is called as "un dîner de cons". Everyone brings the dumbest guy he could find as a guest. Pierre thinks his champ -François Pignon- will steal the show.

INTERESTING FACTS

This movie is based on a play that director Francis Veber had written years in 1993. It was cut down by 45 minutes when shot into film.

Thierry Lhermitte is to France what Harrison Ford is to America, and landed leading roles in some of the most commercially successful French movies from the '80s and '90s. Arnold Schwarzenneger (True Lies), Tim Allen (Jungle 2 Jungle), and Steve Martin (Mixed Nuts) all reprised roles he created in American remakes. Thierry Lhermitte also happened to be the leading man in Catherine Zeta-Jones's very first movie, Sheherazade (1990).

The movie received 3 César Awards, the French equivalent of Academy Awards, in 1999: Best Actor for Jacques Villeret, Best Supporting Actor for Daniel Prévost and Best Writing - Original or Adaptation for Francis Veber. It was also nominated for Best Director (Francis Veber), Best Film and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Frot).
 
 
 

INTERVIEW WITH FRANCIS VEBER

Losely translated from a 1998 Belgium interview with writer and director Francis Véber. Comments gathered by Olivier Guéret at Cinopsis.

"Characters must always have flaws. If they don’t have any, then they’re boring and lifeless. Real heroes always have issues."

"The Dinner Game really exists. I know people who attended some. [French TV host] Jacques Martin was invited by Castel to one of these dinners once. He found his dumb sidekick, but the poor guy fell ill. Jacques called his host totally psyched out, asking if he hadn’t another dumb guy he could borrow. Castel recommended he contacted a famous TV director, that I shall not name, but who is incredibly stupid.  Martin called him, but only to find out that this director had already been invited by another guest to that same dinner! (laughs) Claude Brasseur, who was in the [Dinner Game] play, told me he was once invited to such a dinner. His friends told him afterwards. It was when he was doing Paris-Dakar, you just had to mention the name and he couldn’t drop the topic."

"[Actor Thierry Lhermitte] and I were in a car recently when the driver said he’d like to ask us a question about movies. He asked what the difference was between a director and a filmmaker. We explained to him that it was the same thing. Two slightly different roles, but performed by the same individual. The driver was surprised, and proudly declared that then the filmmaker was the assistant of the director (laughs), before he jumped to the next topic –the difference between an actor and a comedian."

"One of the scariest kind of dumb people, is the stupid guys who want to be helpful, they’re the most dangerous! The only comforting thing about stupid people, is that one is always considered stupid by somebody else. People surprise you more by their dumbness than by their intelligence."

"Laughter is a defense mechanism. It is the politeness of despair. The basis of comedy is almost always tragedy. To get the laughter, you need that kind of danger."

"This is my purest, most condensed movie. I always fought against boredom at the movies. The play was two-and-a-half hours long, I could have kept it all in. I remember laughing during the entire play. I just added the scenes at the beginning of the movie. Jean Poiret had a nervous breakdown when trying to adapt The Birdcage as a movie. He was under medication. Actually the producer called me to ask me to adapt the screenplay because he couldn’t do it. I understand why. I had the same problem when I tried to adapt my own play L'emmerdeur. Theatre and cinema are a whole world apart. Movies are closer to reality. What works at the theater may not work in a movie. It took me three weeks to solve that case [on L'emmerdeur]. Even Simone Signoret told me I wouldn’t make it. In the play, the dinner isn’t structured the same way as it is in the film. I never considered writting the actual dinner taking place. It would be too hard showing guys saying stupid things and others laughing at them."

"I hate what I do. It’s very painful watching a videotape of your own movies and see all their flaws. The only way to do that, is to wait for them to be broadcast on TV, and think that there might be millions of people watching what you created."

"When you write, you can hear what you’re writing. It is a constant struggle to get the actor to read the lines the way you wrote them. The performer believes he is right and you have to take him onto grounds that he thinks are wrong, when you, the screenwriter, know perfectly that it is the way it should be."

"There is always a miracle on a shooting. A movie is so fragile that it can shift very easily. If you don’t get the right cast, you’re lost. For this movie, I found Francis Huster who is one of the best at bursting into laughters. As for Thierry, he really grew as an actor. He started with very parodic, simple performances like in Mixed Nuts to a much more naked performance. I think he achieved that in this film; he couldn’t rely on any sort of tricks. As for Jacques Villeret, he was in the play. The only difference was that he had to internalize all that he brought to the stage. What was funny in the screenplay has been magnified by the actors. Villeret and Lhermitte are a match made in heaven. I could not have paired up again Depardieu and Pierre Richard. By the way, Gérard told me that he had nothing to do in a movie like this one."